Judge orders thousands of probationary employees fired by Trump be reinstated

A federal judge Thursday night ordered that thousands of federal workers fired by the Trump administration be temporarily reinstated.

U.S. District Judge James Bredar in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order against dozens of agencies, departments and their leaderships across the federal government that had terminated workers as part of reduction-in-workforce efforts.

“In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice. It claims it wasn’t required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary employees for ‘performance’ or other individualized reasons,” Bredar wrote in his ruling.

“On the record before the Court, this isn’t true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively,” he added.

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The order applies to 12 departments that have fired probationary workers: the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs.

It also applies to probationary workers who were terminated recently at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., General Service Administration and Small Business Administration.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The government has dismissed about 200,000 probationary employees — workers who are either recent hires or had taken new positions — since President Donald Trump took office in January.

The order comes hours after a federal judge in California directed that the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Treasury offer reinstatement to the thousands of probationary employees who were terminated last month by the Trump administration.